


What Hurts

by intentandinvention



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Chapel is excessively handy with a hypospray, Fluff, Gossiping redshirts, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Nightmares, Paralysis, Sleep Deprivation, Torture, Violence, Written before Star Trek Into Darkness
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-13
Updated: 2015-09-13
Packaged: 2018-04-20 14:00:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4789874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/intentandinvention/pseuds/intentandinvention
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>‘Garrett,’ Jim says hollowly, but the medic’s already kneeling at Bones’s side, ready with the scanner.</p><p>‘He’s alive, Sir,’ she says. ‘The damage is mostly superficial, nothing permanent as long as we beam him straight back to the Enterprise as soon as possible, without moving him.’</p><p>[on hiatus]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written in response to a prompt that I can no longer find the link for at the st_xi_kink meme. Please excuse my anatomical / American English fails, and feel free to correct them!

Bones figured that one away mission couldn’t possibly hurt. Usually one of the medical ensigns goes with the away missions, patching up as they go along, but this time they were sent to help a planet stricken by a new plague, and Bones is not only the resident virologist but, from the symptoms, he’d seen something like this before. Everything fitted with the virus that had wiped out Kelth VI whilst he was parked on his ass in a lab figuring out the cure just a couple of days too slow. The virus mutates fast, so the cure has to mutate too, and Bones was rushed to hell in this surprisingly large mining town on Cetra II as he tried to keep up with the damn thing.

He’s now very much not rushed, and it’s almost ironic how much “couldn’t possibly hurt” no longer even remotely applies to this particular away mission. The four medical and security redshirts sent with him are dead, the Enterprise has no idea where they are, and Bones himself is trying desperately to remember the torture resistance classes that he never paid much attention to because, after all, no one ever tortures a doctor. He reflects, as the spiked whip lands on his back again, causing a cry of pain that is almost but not quite a scream, that no one has told the Cetrans about this.

When Jim came back cut on and generally mauled after torture sessions with locals, having said nothing, Bones always figured that torture couldn’t be that bad if Jim could put up with it and usually stride around cockily for a couple of hours before he finally got his idiot ass to med bay. He’s learning a new respect for Jim, although he’s not quite out of it enough to realise that the man’s astronomical pain threshold is probably the result of losing more bar brawls than most men ever hear of, let alone participate in. Bones’s pain threshold, he is learning alarmingly fast, is not high. Not high at all. His hands are clenched so tight with trying to distract himself from the burning on his back that his blunt, short fingernails have actually cut into his palms. His breath’s coming in short gasps, and even though somewhere behind it all his medical training is calmly assessing the damage to his body, telling him that it’s actually nothing that serious unless that whip gets too close to his spinal cord, the bit of him that isn’t a doctor doesn’t care and is squirming with pain and crying and promising that god, if Jim ever turns up with that rescue team he can have whatever he wants, ever, even if it’s Bones’s soul or … or… whatever it is that Jim wants. He realises with a shock that –

The whip whistles down again, and his throat hurts when he screams. Almost as much as his back, so it’s a bit of a relief, really. There’s blood trickling down his back, and his legs are cramped from kneeling in this position for so long. Another crack of the whip, and he can’t help it. ‘God, _please_ ,’ he sobs. _Sorry, Jim_ is a mental addition that he prays he’s not going to have to mean. They haven’t even told him what it is they want – just dragged him into this goddamn huge room, taken his uniform and made him kneel on the floor while they slice his back open. At least, he thinks hazily, they don’t look human like the ones he was treating; these ones are more lizard-ish. He’s not sure if he could deal with this if they were human. Not that he’s dealing with it that well. Through the searing on his back that’s all he can really concentrate on, he realises that the whip hasn’t landed yet, and that there’s someone standing in front of him. He raises his head high enough to see scaley joints that on a human would probably be knees, but twinges in his back warn him not to raise it any further. No strain to the back, not with such massive trauma to the subepithelial layer, the doctor in him scolds.

‘You surrendered faster than we had expected from an officer of the fabled Enterprise, Doctor McCoy,’ the lizardthing says. The voice is sibilant and satisfied, and Bones only stops himself from sagging in defeat because he knows it’ll be hell on his torn back.

‘What do you _want_ , you bastard?’ he demands. He’s going to be sick, all over the lizardthing’s toes. If it has toes. Xenobiology was not his best subject, and anyway he never saw this race in any encyclopaedia.

‘Nothing difficult, Doctor McCoy,’ it hisses. ‘We simply want you to leave. We want your promise that you will leave Cetra and not return, not interfere with the plague.’

He hisses through clenched teeth. It would be easy enough. There are plenty of planets that have died of plagues that he didn’t reach – Cetra would just be one more. He imagines Jim glaring at him because he’s even considering not agreeing, but oh god he can’t do it. Dammit, Jim had better get here fast.

He’s not expecting the whip this time, and when it scorches its way past the agony that is his back he really does scream, and it’s even worse because every muscle that’s half-ripped tenses and it _hurts_. ‘A simple “yes” will do, Doctor McCoy, and we will leave you where your starship will find you – who knows, perhaps even before you die of blood loss,’ the lizardthing rasps.

Just one word…. He listened to this bit of the class, at least, and so he knows exactly what to say.

‘Leonard McCoy, Chief Medical Officer, USS Enter-‘ He’s cut off by the next line of fire across his back, but at least the damn scream can’t possibly be interpreted as anything remotely affirmative. He retreats into the security of his name, rank and ship, into the knowledge that _any damn minute now_ someone from that ship is going to come and rescue him. Jim’d be favourite, but hell, he’d even welcome the hobgoblin right now.

 

Jim’s given the order to set phazers to kill for this mission, and if Scotty doesn’t come up with Bones’s location _right now_ they’re going to be used on the Engineering Officer. Chekov’s been replaced at the helm and he and Scotty both have their heads bent over a map of Cetra II, tracking Bones’s last known whereabouts as Jim, Spock, Uhura and and security team wait near the pad. Or at least, everyone else is waiting. Jim’s pacing up and down and he knows that as Captain he should be calm, but this is his Chief Medical Officer that’s gone missing, this is _Bones_ down there on that damn planet, missing for twenty-nine long hours during which they found the bodies of the four ensigns who were with him. Bones is not going on an away mission again unless Jim is personally there with him every second of said mission. Not even to Fluffy Pink Funland planet, if they ever come across such a place.

‘Scotty-‘ he growls, but he’s cut off by the comm crackling.

‘Bridge to Kirk,’ Sulu’s voice calls.

‘Kirk here, what is it?’

‘Transmission from Cetra, Captain.’

‘Send it down to the pad, Sulu,’ Jim orders. Spock and Uhura move in behind him as he goes to one of the less important screens, and for a moment the simmering bubbling mess that is his brain without McCoy is relieved that someone’s got his back.

‘Yes, Sir.’

The transmission slides onto the screen – it’s a humanoid lizard, and humanoid is stretching it. _Captain Kirk_ , it hisses. _My name is C’thos, and my message is simple_. It reaches off to one side, and when the clawed, webbed hand returns, Jim might have thought he was angry before, but now he’s _furious_. The bloodstained blue rag hanging from the tip of a claw used to be Bones’s shirt, and oh god what if he’s dead. It hadn’t occurred to Jim that they might just have killed him instead of using him as bargaining material. Just beneath the level of the transmission, Spock’s hand touches his hip in reassurance, and he breathes in softly, refusing to let this lizard bastard win. _We have Doctor McCoy_ , it tells him, and oh god he’s alive. _The USS Enterprise will leave Cetra within two hours and not return, or we will execute him. There are no other terms_.

‘How do we know he’s still alive?’ Jim asks steadily.

The lizard’s mouth twitches, and it makes some kind of signal. There’s a crack of what sounds like a whip and then a hoarse, broken scream barely recognisable as Bones’s but which seals the fate of every bloody lizard thing down there, Prime fucking Directive or no. Jim makes sure that his clenching fists are lowered so that the lizard can’t see them, and goes through some of the exercises that Spock’s taught him to keep his face emotionless. ‘You are understood, C’thos.’

The transmission ends, and Jim continues to stare at the screen. Everyone around him is silent except for Chekov and Scotty, who are muttering to each other. ‘Scotty?’ he says, and he’s surprised at how steady his voice is.

There’s a pause, and then Scotty straightens up. ‘Got him, Captain.’

The team is on the pad before Jim needs to give the order, and he nods and joins them. Chekov is looking at him with wide eyes, and Jim wonders what there is in his expression that merits the Russian’s apparent awe and terror. He draws the phazer from his belt and flicks the light to red, waits for Scotty to give the nod. ‘Go get ‘em, Captain. Cannae be sure how many o’ the cold-blooded gits are down there; be ready ta defend yeself.’

‘Energize,’ is his only response, and as the white lines start forming he resolves that Scotty’s going to find a way to make this damn beaming process _faster_ , because they’re wasting time standing on the pad when they should be kicking the shit out of that lizard.

When he’s reassembled on the surface it’s opposite one very surprised-looking lizard, and Jim’s so angry by now that he doesn’t even think about the fact that the phazer in his hand has a trigger – it’s a heavy object, and it collides in a satisfying way with the enemy’s head. The thing slumps, and Spock kneels beside it, fingers on its face, probably to figure out Bones’s exact whereabouts, but Jim is already striding into the cave mouth straight ahead, the rest of the team spreading out at his shoulders.

Two sentries move to stop them; Jim takes one out with his fist and the other one falls in a barrage of phazer fire. He’s vaguely aware that he should probably take cover rather than simply walk on down the metal-lined tunnel, but taking cover is going to take time and Bones doesn’t bloody well _have_ time, so neither does he. Four sentries rush at them, and Jim downs one with a phazer blast and charges at the others, feeling a roar of fury rip from his throat as he pulls one in and headbutts it, the other two dropping as it slackens in his grip.

‘Captain, Doctor McCoy is located in the large room ahead of us,’ Spock says at his side, indicating the metal doors that Jim’s been aiming for. ‘It would appear that there is a sizeable gathering of potentially hostile beings; caution would be advisable.’

Jim growls non-commitally and moves ahead, waits impatiently while Spock gets the door open. It slides smoothly to the side, revealing a ring of lizardthings maybe twenty-strong, and C’thos lounging on a dais. A phazer shot to the head for C’thos, and the rest of the team thank god have been spending as much time as him on the firing range, because five shots take out another five, and they’ve got just enough time as the ring expands and collapses to focus on them. Jim knows he can’t go in fists swinging this time, so he takes aim and downs another one, two, three, four, five before the last one left reaches him, and it bulls into him, knocks him to the ground before an arm drags it aside and throws it into the wall. Jim nods gratefully at Spock as he gets to his feet, and then he realises that the red thing in the centre of the ring which he’d glimpsed and thought was maybe some kind of altar is actually Bones, kneeling over, his back bright with blood, flayed, and his head hanging. He’s not moving.

‘Garrett,’ Jim says hollowly, but the medic’s already kneeling at Bones’s side, ready with the scanner.

‘He’s alive, Sir,’ she says. ‘The damage is mostly superficial, nothing permanent as long as we beam him straight back to the Enterprise as soon as possible, without moving him.’

‘Doesn’t fucking _feel_ superficial,’ Bones grumbles, and his voice is barely there from screaming but he’s _alive_ and Jim’s hands are shaking so much with adrenaline and relief and fury that Spock has to contact Scotty because Jim can’t use his comm. He can shoot out the chain binding Bones’s hands to the floor, though (on the second go, anyway), and he pulls it gently away from the doctor’s wrists, trying to make sure he doesn’t move him. ‘Jim?’ Bones croaks.

‘Yep,’ he replies, hoping that he sounds more cheerful than he feels. He wants to hold Bones, to let him know that it’s all fine now, but the best he can do is wrap his hands around one of his friend’s and wait for Scotty to beam them up to the medical bay.

With the accuracy that Scotty is slowly but surely learning, they’re beamed onto a bed in the med bay, Jim kneeling just beside the pillow and Bones curled up opposite him. He moves to get down when the attending nurses frown at him, but Bones’s hand tightens around his and he shakes his head at them. ‘He can’t move anyway,’ he tells them. ‘Get his back healed, then we’ll see about lying him down.’

Garrett glances at Jim, a sedative hypospray that Jim recognises (oh so well, Bones has jabbed a million of them into his neck when he’s been ill, reckless, injured or just irritating and he wishes it was Bones threatening him with one now) in her hand. ‘Gonna let you sleep now, Bones,’ Jim murmurs. ‘Gonna fix you up and get you grumbling at us for doing it wrong in no time.’ He hears murmurs from some of the female staff, and wonders why. The hypospray’s applied, gently, and Bones sags and the medical staff get to work instantly, bringing up dermal regenerators and god knows what else, and Jim just sits in the middle of it all with Bones’s head on his knee, his fingers sifting through dark hair. No one turns up from the bridge to ask for him; to his quiet surprise he realises that the nurses are calling him Jim as they heal Bones up, telling him to shift the limp body this way and that so that they can make sure that they’ve covered everything. Not Captain. Bones is so still and his skin’s all pale.

‘Jim?’ someone murmurs.

He nods dazedly, watching Bones’s pulse quiver slowly in his neck.

‘You can get down now. We’ll get you a chair. We need to lie him down properly; he won’t heal well in this position.’

‘Not leaving him,’ he says.

‘I know, Jim, but the best you can do for him at the moment is sit down and let him rest, and let us have a look at that bump on your head as well.’ It’s Nurse Chapel, he realises. Bones trusts her. He starts to move, hisses as pins and needles spread up the leg that Bones is lying on, makes them fade out into the background so that he can lay Bones’s head gently down onto the bed. There’s a chair there, just as she promised, and as the medical staff move Bones to lie on his stomach along the bed, he sinks into it, gritting his teeth as the realisation of previously disregarded injury sets in. Bones isn’t awake to see the brief revelation of pain, so he figures he can keep disregarding it until Bones gets up and growls at him for daring. He squeezes the hand he’s still holding, although logically Bones probably can’t feel it.

Nurse Chapel is in front of him again, medical scanner in one hand that she runs over him the way Bones usually does. She’s not scowling, though; she looks almost gentle. ‘You’ve got some nasty bruising on your forehead and right hand, not to mention two broken ribs,’ she says. ‘Better than the usual, I suppose.’ Jim registers the injuries and shrugs, but he lets her cut down his shirt to get to his chest, lets go of Bones’s hand for half a second to drop the gold and black between chair and bed. He doesn’t really notice what she’s doing to heal him up; when it’s Bones he’s aware of every touch, every grumble, the way he smoothes the edges of the bandages so that they don’t catch on Jim’s shirt.

When she’s done, she retreats and leaves them alone. Jim leans back in the chair, adjusts his hand over Bones’s so that he can rest his elbow on the edge of the bed. Now that Nurse Chapel’s pointed out his injuries, they’re hurting, along with all of the little things that she didn’t worry about fixing because she knows he’s used to them, and the headache that’s slowly growing at the back of his brain. He closes his eyes – just for a second, just to rest them from the bright light of the med bay.

 

Uhura sighs, just a little, as she enters the med bay for the seventh time in as many hours. Spock’s been sending her down every hour, on the hour, since Jim failed to turn up after taking McCoy to the med bay – supposedly she’s meant to be reporting on the Captain’s status for the logs, but she knows most of Spock’s expressions by now, and the slight narrowing of his eyes as he looks up at her from the Captain’s chair every hour means that he’s worried. They’ve never had the CMO _and_ the Captain disabled in the med bay at the same time, and although Spock’s used to taking the bridge when Jim’s med bay-bound, Jim always communicates first, gives orders for the XO to take over and cheerfully limps off to see McCoy. This time there was nothing after he, Bones and Garrett were beamed to med bay.

The Captain hasn’t moved – he’s still shirtless and asleep, curled up on the chair that some kind soul found for him, clutching Bones’s hand like it’s some kind of teddy bear. The bruise on his forehead is yellowing, and when he shifts slightly Uhura notes that he doesn’t screw up his face in pain anymore. That’s good, right? She hears footsteps behind her, and Nurse Chapel speaks.

‘The Captain should really get back to his quarters and sleep there. He hasn’t slept since we lost Doctor McCoy, so he should rest, but it’s not good for his ribs, being curled up in that chair.’

‘It’s not particularly good for his ribs to belong to Jim Kirk, I’d noticed,’ Uhura murmurs, and Chapel laughs softly. It’s true – Jim’s ribs have probably been broken more in his twenty-something years than anyone else’s in a lifetime. ‘You think he’ll let go of Doctor McCoy’s hand?’ Uhura asks, half-serious.

Chapel sighs. ‘No.’ She hesitates, cocking her head on one side as she looks at the two of them, Jim and McCoy. ‘Just think how many hearts I could break at the Academy and amongst Starfleet just by taking a picture of that. Jim Kirk curled up at someone’s bedside and holding their hand as if he’ll never let go. Never thought it would happen, myself.’

Uhura remembers Jim and Bones at the Academy, and wonders if she ever thought it. They go together quite well, have done since the flight attendant wrestled McCoy out of the washroom on the shuttle to the Academy and he grumbled his way over to the only spare seat, which was next to the crazy masochistic farmboy with the gorgeous blue eyes. Jim was crazy in the head and McCoy was crazy in the eyes – it was obviously meant to be.

She shrugs, and moves forward, nudging the Captain’s foot with hers before resting her hand on his shoulder. The Enterprise crew learned quickly never to lay a hand on Jim when he’s sleeping without giving warning first. He seems to have an uncanny ability to follow the arm up to the face within the first second of waking, which resulted in bleeding noses for three people before word got around. Now, though, he just shifts slightly, tensing, before his eyes open halfway. He looks disoriented as he sees her, then the blue gaze goes to the still-sleeping McCoy before it returns to her. ‘Oh. Hi ‘Hura,’ he greets her, his voice muzzy with exhaustion. ‘Isn’ any change ye’. Doowannabir-‘ he hesitates, visibly tries to concentrate. ‘Do you want me at the bridge yet?’

‘No, Captain. Commander Spock’s set the course for the next mission and we won’t arrive for a long time, and everything else is fine. You need to sleep properly, though, Sir.’

His head cocks at her in that confused expression that is uniquely Jim Kirk, usually when he’s drunk. ‘Have been sleepin’ prop’ly. Least, didn’ see any hyposprays.’ Uhura almost smiles at that, that he thinks that proper sleep is any sleep without a sedative.

‘You need to sleep in a _bed_ , Captain,’ Chapel says over her shoulder. ‘With the lights off, with no noise, and for at _least_ ten hours. You had been awake for thirteen hours when Doctor McCoy went missing, which makes forty-five hours without sleep by the time his surgery was finished. Sleep deprivation is a recognised form of torture, as you well know, and I will not allow the Captain to torture himself when his Chief Medical Officer is also recovering from torture.’

Jim somehow manages a smile. ‘Okay, I’ll wait my turn,’ he mumbles. ‘You’ll tell me as soon as Bones – as soon as Doctor McCoy wakes up?’

He and Chapel share a long, negotiating look, during which volumes are spoken which Uhura, although expert in a few hundred languages, can’t hear. Finally Chapel sighs. ‘If he asks for you, someone will come to find you.’ The chances of Bones _not_ asking for Jim are minimal, and Uhura suspects that foul play will be involved in this one. Jim finally lets go of Bones’s hand, stretches his legs and stands, and promptly falls into Uhura’s arms.

‘Pins and needles ow,’ he says as she slings one of his arms over her shoulder and waits for him to sort himself out. Silently cursing the heels of her uniform (really, _heels_?), she half-drags him to the door, glad at least that his room isn’t far from the med bay. He’s heavier than she’d expected him to be, but after a couple of steps he adjusts his step, lightens up, and she realises that of course it’s usually Bones dragging him about by an arm, and Bones is stronger than her and so Jim’s used to barely having to take any of his own weight if he needs help. When they stop by the door to his quarters and she waits for him to enter the keycode, he frowns in confusion, and of course Bones usually does that too.

She’s been in the Captain’s quarters once before, and they’re less empty now than they were then, when Jim had only just taken them. Not much, though – she gets the impression that Jim doesn’t own much, although he’s collecting gifts from planets that they visit, and things that the crew gave him for their first Christmas onboard. The to-scale model of the Enterprise that came from the officer team is displayed in pride of place on a bookshelf, even if Scotty grumbled about the engine room being the best bit yet not included. ‘Bedroom’s on the right,’ Jim tells her, straightening up a bit.

The bedcovers are Starfleet issue, as is everything else in the bedroom. Jim stumbles over to sit on the bed, starts to bend over to remove his shoes, and suddenly tenses all over, hissing in pain. He stares at the wall for a moment, then sighs. ‘Please, please don’t take this the wrong way, Lieutenant, but I think I’m going to need help taking my clothes off,’ he says, without looking at her.

She resists the urge to chuckle at how many women would kill to be her right now, and she’s glad that none of them are because Jim needs looking after, not being fawned over. ‘Understood, Captain,’ she says gently, and she kneels down in front of him, removes his shoes and socks. ‘Pants too, Sir?’

He’s actually blushing in embarrassment as he undoes his belt and flies, when she’d bet that any other time he’d be grinning by now. Chapel was right, he’s not well. He has to lean on her in order to push them halfway off, then he sits and she pulls them down his legs and off his feet, putting them in the laundry chute with his socks as he gingerly maneuvers himself into the bed, clad only in black boxers. ‘Sorry, Lieutenant,’ he says, yawning, as she turns back.

She smiles again – she always smiles around Jim, because even if she doesn’t remotely fancy him, he’s a nice guy once you get used to the cocky attitude (and honestly, that’s becoming okay because he has a _right_ to be cocky). ‘Not a problem, Sir – only a mercy you don’t sleep naked.’

His eyes are closed already, but he nods into the pillow. ‘D’smissed, Lieutenant,’ he mumbles. ‘Thanks.’

The computer turns the lights off just as she leaves, and she returns to the bridge to report to Spock – mission successful.

 

Bones wakes up three hours after Jim’s fallen asleep, and finds Nurse Chapel at his side instantly. ‘How are you feeling, Doctor?’ she asks him.

‘Back hurts,’ he grumbles. Hurts like pinpricks of fire and ice all over.

‘That’s only to be expected – you did lose most of the skin there. The nerve regeneration alone should contribute significantly to the pain.’

He squints blearily at her. ‘I know that, woman.’ He notices that she’s holding a hypospray in one hand, and glares at it. ‘’s a sedative, not painkiller. Doesn’t matter how long you keep me under, you’ll have to give me back the med bay sometime. Get me some morphine, ‘s not meant to hurt this much.’

‘Doctor-‘

‘Morphine or a damn bourbon, Nurse Chapel, it’s your damn choice, but whatever it bloody well is, get it _quickly_!’

Her frown lets him know that she’s not leaving because he shouted but because she’s decided that he needs it, and as she moves to get a new hypospray (she leaves the other one on the bed opposite, scatterbrained woman) his eyes drift to the chair beside his bed. There are the bloody black and gold remains of two shirts there, which is practically Jim’s signature. Less blood than usual, though, which is a good sign, and since most of it’s on the cuffs it’s probably someone else’s anyway. Probably Bones’s.

Nurse Chapel comes back, pumps him full of painkillers again so that the pinpricks in his back fade. He glances down at the shirts again. ‘Jim okay?’ he asks.

‘The Captain has a couple of broken bones, mild bruising and has inflicted severe sleep deprivation on himself, but yes, he will live,’ Chapel replies, and she’s picked up that sedative hypospray again. He wonders why.

‘Is he awa-‘

He doesn’t quite manage the last syllable before the sedative’s been jammed into his neck. His last thought before it takes over is that perhaps she’s not as scatterbrained as he thought she was.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He smiles cheerfully at Nurse Chapel as he enters the med bay, so that she knows that he hasn’t been awake all night or having nightmares about Bones dying, and goes straight to Bones’s bed, ducking through the curtains hung around it.

In Jim’s dream he watches Bones’s med screen flatline, and listens intently to the long, toneless noise because it drowns out the voice behind him that’s saying things that he doesn’t want to hear but he can hear anyway, like _too late_ and _not good enough_ and _didn’t even stay to watch him die_. He’s suddenly kneeling on the floor of the Cetran room again, only this time it’s _his_ wrists that are chained, and the whip whistles and cracks down onto his unprotected back. He feels its fibres cutting into his flesh, ripping and tearing, but it doesn’t hurt. It doesn’t hurt until he turns his head and realises that it’s Bones wielding the whip, and then it’s a level of agony that he’s never felt anything like, but he can’t scream. Bones throws away the whip and crouches down beside him. The deep brown eyes are cold with fury, and when the doctor punches a fist up through Jim’s rib cage and pulls out Jim’s heart, dripping blood – then Jim can scream.

He doesn’t realise that he’s awake at first, because everything’s dark enough that he’s not sure whether he’s opened his eyes, and his ribs hurt as if they’ve been broken again. ‘Lights to twenty-five percent,’ he says experimentally, and the gentle glow illuminates his bedroom. He’s lying on his front, his left arm numb and trapped awkwardly between his ribs and the bed – that explains the dream. He inhales steadily. That explains the dream. Rolling over makes the pain calm a little, and he waits for a few minutes for the blood to return to his arm. When he cranes his head up a little to look at the screen that’s come on automatically opposite his bed, he can see that he’s slept for twelve hours, if he’s counted it right. Nurse Chapel said _at least ten_.

‘Kirk to medical bay,’ he says, and waits for the computer to pick it up.

‘Nurse Chapel here, Captain,’ comes the reply.

‘Bones awake yet?’

‘Captain, I told you to sleep-‘

‘I’ve _slept_ ,’ he growls. ‘Is my CMO awake, Nurse Chapel?’

‘No, Captain.’

He knows perfectly well that she wouldn’t have made that deal with him if she didn’t have something up her sleeve, and this confirms it. Bones would be up and grumbling by now if he had it his way. ‘Roughly when do you expect the sedative to wear off, Nurse?’

There’s a heartfelt sigh. ‘Two hours, perhaps longer.’

‘Thank you, Nurse Chapel. Kirk out.’

A shower and a clean uniform makes him feel almost awake. He notes in passing that that’s yet another gold shirt he needs to order from the supplies officer, and is vaguely thankful that the others don’t get through theirs as fast as he does, because he has no doubt that they’re running low.

Jim smiles cheerfully at Nurse Chapel as he enters the med bay, so that she knows that he hasn’t been awake all night or having nightmares about Bones dying, and goes straight to Bones’s bed, ducking through the curtains hung around it. Bones is lying on his front, the skin of his back pale and blotched with red where it should be tanned and smooth. There are tubes trailing from him to various bags of things, one of which is blood and the others of which are unrecognisable. Jim leafs through the notes left on the screen by the bed, vaguely understanding some of the medical terms and gathering generally that Bones should be okay once he has the proper amount of blood and nutrients in his body. Except that then he looks at the next page, and there’s stuff about possible damage to the thoracic and lumbar regions of the spine which was missed before because of the superficial injury, and someone’s noted “T7-L2 trauma, spinal shock likely”.

Jim looks again at the still form on the bed. Even though his back’s the wrong colour, it’s smooth and toned, curving down to …. Jim realises that he’s checking out his best friend’s ass and blinks. He files that thought away for future consideration, and carefully returns his thoughts to the concept of spinal shock, because this is hardly the time.

Bones doesn’t exactly look in shock, but then he doesn’t look calm even in sleep; his lips are twisted in what looks like mild irritation, and his eyes are moving constantly under his eyelids. His right hand is half over the edge of the bed, and it’s clenching and unclenching as if he’s trying to catch hold of something. Jim puts his own hand there, feels Bones’s fingers curl tight around his palm the way they did when he was sitting on the bed with Bones’s head in his lap. ‘Shh, Bonesy,’ he says quietly, not wanting to risk waking him. ‘They’ve fixed you up, everything’s fine now. I hope. They can’t be too worried about this thoracic lumbar spine stuff or they would’ve said something to me.’

His comm buzzes. ‘Bridge to Captain Kirk,’ Spock’s voice says. He sounds tired, for Spock. Jim wonders if he’s even tried to sleep, and briefly reflects on the unfairness of Chapel picking on him but not his First Officer.

‘Kirk here,’ he says.

‘The crew are somewhat concerned about your wellbeing, Captain, particularly at a time when the CMO is confined to sick bay. I suggest that an appearance on the bridge would aid morale significantly.’

And allow Spock some relief and rest, although he won’t ever say that. He and Jim are coming to understand each other, to make allowances for a lack of emotion and for an excess of it. ‘A good suggestion. I’ll be on the bridge in a minute or so to relieve you. Kirk out.’

When he tries to remove his hand from Bones’s, the doctor’s fingers tighten hard, and he winces a little as he gently disengages himself. ‘I’ll be back in two hours, Bones,’ he murmurs. He finds himself reaching out to brush dark hair away from Bones’s eyes and mouth, and the action slows involuntarily as he actually thinks about it. Do best friends do that for each other? He can’t honestly remember – Bones is the only best friend he’s had, and he’s never been hurt this badly before. And he doesn’t remember Bones ever hooking Jim’s own hair away from his face, but he wouldn’t because, well, he’s generally unconscious if he’s lying down in the med bay.

Jim leaves for the bridge deep in thought. He knows very well that his superiors (and probably his equals and most of his crew, as well) would say that he doesn’t think before acting, or even much at all, but actually that’s not true. He thinks a lot about his actions, it’s just that most situations don’t require much thought beforehand. Run away and die along with the rest of the ‘Fleet or attempt to save a planet of billions of people, for example. There was never really much choice in that, and all the thinking that he needed to do is being done afterwards, when he wakes up in a sweat after a nightmare about what might have happened if he’d done the wrong thing. But that’s not necessary thought, it’s just peripheral.

There are, however, some things that require thought. The realisation that apparently he likes Bones’s ass is one. Jim’s brow furrows slightly as he tries to decide if that’s true, and he hopes that it makes him look as if he’s thinking about important things when two of the crew pass him in the corridor. Not that this new development isn’t important, if that’s what it is. He realises that he’s near the bridge and doesn’t want to arrive there just yet, so he ducks into a rec room just in time to hear someone say ‘-heard he wouldn’t let go of Doctor McCoy until the surgery was done, and then he fell asleep next to the bed, holding his hand.’

It’s a female ensign, one he vaguely remembers wishing wasn’t in his crew so that he could flirt with her. He doesn’t remember her name and in the buzz of the rec room she hasn’t noticed him enter. They’re talking about _him_ , unless he’s mistaken.

‘They’re so cute together!’ another ensign says in a voice that Jim swears is several pitches higher than her usual. _Together_? Him and … wait, him and Bones? He moves away from the door and into a seat with his back to them, suddenly amused and intrigued and maybe a little bit scared that apparently these women not only think he’s dating Bones but they’re in support of it happening.

‘Cute?’ a man scoffs, and Jim nods in agreement. He’s not cute, and he wouldn’t be cute if he _was_ dating Bones. Which he isn’t and hasn’t had time to consider yet, because before this morning he was almost certain that he was, whilst not necessarily straight, certainly more attracted to the gender that has breasts. ‘ _Hot_ , more like,’ the speaker murmurs. ‘If the captain’s that possessive openly, just imagine what he’s like in private.’ There’s an explosion of giggles suddenly, and Jim isn’t blushing because Jim doesn’t blush.

‘I can’t really imagine McCoy putting up with that,’ someone says thoughtfully, the second woman, and now he recognises that voice – she’s a low ranking nurse. ‘I mean, he’s older, and the Captain’s just too pretty.’ She lowers her voice slightly, so Jim has to strain to catch it. ‘It’s much easier to imagine McCoy pinning the Captain to the bed and fucking him into the mattress than the reverse, am I right? And the Captain just _begging_ him for more?’

And Jim hadn’t got remotely that far in his train of thought about Bones, but now he has and _oh_ that’s a very interesting image in his head right now, even if he’s _never_ begged. Never needed to, never wanted to.

If Bones told him to, he reckons, he might actually. He tunes back into the conversation momentarily to hear ‘-bet he has such a dirty mouth-‘ but his comm crackles before he has a chance to learn more.

‘Bridge to Kirk.’

There’s an abrupt, alarmed pause behind him, and he silently curses Spock’s timing and answers. ‘Kirk here. I’ll be on the bridge in a couple of seconds.’

Somehow he manages to leave the rec room without looking in the ensigns’ direction, even amidst the flow of frantic whispering that resumes when he stands. The turbolift takes him straight up to the deck, and he slides into his chair and asks for a report from Spock, tries to shake the image of Bones fucking him into the wide Starfleet mattress in his quarters. Normally it’s easy enough to keep thoughts of sex and work separate, but every time Spock says “Doctor McCoy”, which is every other minute of the report, Jim’s head goes haywire. Finally he holds up a hand to stop Spock, who finishes perfectly midsentence, as if it was intended. ‘Thank you, Commander, I’ll read the rest later,’ he says, and Spock’s right eyebrow only crooks a little. ‘If you could perhaps let me know about the status of our current mission? I’ve been a little out of touch since we recovered Doctor McCoy.’

‘Our current mission is ambassadorial transport, Captain. We are currently on course to Teluris IV, and have contacted the Federation Ambassador in question to confirm the rendezvous and his transport to Charzon II. The mission is medium level security, as the Ambassador is negotiating a treaty between Teluris and Charzon regarding tensions over a mineral rich asteroid field, but Starfleet is acting with the support of both governments and there are no significant objections to the treaty that we are aware of.’

Jim nods. ‘Thank you, Commander. And before you ask, I will complete my report on Cetra before the end of this shift, and do my reading for the current mission.’ Spock seems about to say something, but Jim cuts him off. ‘Dismissed, Commander.’ He doesn’t want to be asked about Bones, since he would bet that Spock knows more than him about his CMO’s condition, and he’s not sure that he _wants_ to know. He stands and does his usual inspection of the bridge, talking to his crew and generally being captainy. Sulu seems well; Chekov is reading what looks like an engineering manual, and Spock is working on some complicated formulas that appear to combine Vulcan and Terran mathematics. Jim actually manages to approach Uhura without being embarrassed, as well, considering that he finally got her to take off his clothes last night but didn’t so much as check her out before falling asleep. Exceptional circumstances. She looks up from her workstation as he approaches her.

‘I see you’ve managed to get your own clothing on this morning, Captain,’ she greets him. ‘I take it your ribs are feeling better?’

‘Healing well thank you, Lieutenant,’ he tells her. He looks at her screen and vaguely recognises bits of the text on the screen. ‘Cardassian? Anything I should know about?’

She shakes her head. ‘All quiet on the communication front at the moment, Captain. I’m just doing some translation work for the ‘Fleet to keep my hand in.’

Jim frowns at the screen a little, and tries to remembers something of the Cardassian that he learned in second year. There are symbols that stand out, combinations that he remembers. ‘That’s a treaty, isn’t it?’ he asks, recognising the conventional form from diplomatic lessons. ‘Trade of … munitions and, uh, I think that translates as either starships or birds, so probably starships.’

Uhura makes that face that means she’s trying not to laugh at him. ‘Yes, Captain, roughly correct. The text is fairly old by Cardassian standards –‘

‘Nurse Chapel to bridge,’ he hears, and the rest of Uhura’s sentence is gone in his hurry to reply.

‘Captain Kirk here.’

‘Doctor McCoy is awake, Captain, but you-‘

He’s not entirely sure that he says anything in response to that except ‘Commander Spock, you have the chair,’ as he leaves the bridge. Spock is going to get entirely too comfortable in his chair but hell, he can fight that battle when it comes to it. He hasn’t been strangled for a while, he’s probably due _someone_ ’s fingers around his neck soon and they might as well be those of his First Officer. The path from the bridge to the med bay is so familiar by now that he doesn’t even have to think, a little like the one from the transporter room to the med bay.

When he arrives there, there’s almost no noise except for the quiet conversation of an engineering ensign going through a post-injury checkup with one of the nurses. He was expecting to hear Bones grumbling, and probably Chapel telling him off, but there’s nothing. Nervous, he goes towards the curtained-off section where Bones is, and ducks inside.

Bones is lying on the bed, his head on his arms, and his eyes open when the curtain rustles. He hasn’t moved otherwise, and his hair’s a mess on the side that he was sleeping. ‘Hey, Jim,’ he says. He sounds a lot worse than he looks.

Jim smiles, crosses to the other side of the bed and sits down in the chair that’s still there. Bones lifts his head and turns to face him, the muscles in his shoulders sliding smoothly under newly healed skin. ‘Chapel told me you were awake,’ Jim volunteers. He’s not entirely sure what to say, wishes he’d stopped to listen to whatever it was Chapel said. Bones being quiet, still, not grumbling and insulting Jim and demanding his padd, is strange.

‘She say anything else?’ Bones asks. There are dark circles around his eyes, and his face is pale. Jim finds himself glancing at the IVs to check that they’re still in, and shrugs awkwardly. Bones closes his eyes, breathes deeply. ‘Okay. Supposed to be getting a lot of rest at the moment, Jim. You okay?’ He opens his eyes again, and the deep brown sweeps Jim from head to toe. ‘Lucky you didn’t get concussion, with that bruise. Your ribs are broken but looks like they’ve been bound. Be careful, you idiot.’

‘I’m not the one confined to a bed,’ Jim returns, but gently, because the grumble isn’t the usual grumble, just tired observation. ‘You all right? Anything I can get you?’

Bones shakes his head. ‘Nothing you can do for me right now, Jimmy.’

Jim nods, and stands to go. Best to leave Bones to rest, maybe. But as he moves to put the chair out of the way, his foot hooks around one of the supports of the bed, and he can’t stop himself from falling heavily, right on to Bones’s upper legs. He pushes himself off hastily, waiting to hear Bones’s yell of fury or pain, but Bones’s head is just cocked over his shoulder, and he’s watching Jim pick himself up, and there’s no hint of pain in his eyes.

It hits him then that maybe what Chapel meant to tell him was actually important, and he bites his lip and pokes Bones’s thigh. Does it again, harder, when there’s no reaction except Bones watching him. Still nothing. ‘Oh,’ he mutters, because he’s not sure what else to say. He sits down, hard, on the chair. That’s why Bones is so quiet. ‘How… how bad is it?’

Bones stops looking at him now, turns his head to look at the wall instead. ‘T7 down to L2 regions of my spine are damaged – that’s abdominal and upper thigh motor and sensory function. It… it shouldn’t be permanent. The fact that the scanner missed it first time means that it shouldn’t be very serious. Means the paralysis is most likely temporary. Should only hold out during the stage of spinal shock.’

Jim closes his eyes, tries to breathe. Bones is paralysed. One stupid mission, one stupid group of stupid aliens with an attitude problem, and his best friend and CMO might never be able to walk again. ‘How soon will you know?’ he asks eventually.

Bones shakes his head. ‘Depends how long the spinal shock lasts. Could be anything from forty-eight hours to three weeks. I’ll know when I start moving again.’ He sounds all assured and confident and doctory, and Jim knows that’s not right. The man’s _paralysed_ , and he doesn’t even know if it’s going to be permanent.

‘Bones?’ he says.

Bones still won’t look at him. He stands up, moves to the top of the bed. Bones is staring at the wall still, and his cheeks are wet. ‘Dammit, Jim,’ he says quietly. ‘One damn mission.’

 

Bones isn’t sure how Jim got an arm under his head, but it’s happened, and he’s been crying his damn eyes out on the boy’s shirt for upwards of ten minutes. That wasn’t part of the plan. He wasn’t going to cry. Patients who cry irritate him – crying doesn’t help anything, it’s useless, no matter what his psych training says. And yet here he is. His thighs are numb, his back’s numb although at least he knows that’s the painkiller, and he’s not sure how much of his abdomen he can actually feel. For once he’s glad that Jim went all psycho on something, because that means that he doesn’t have to go back to Cetra and beat the living hell out of the ones who paralysed him. If he can ever do something like that again.

‘I’m sorry,’ Jim says softly. ‘I should have got there sooner.’

This particular gem of Jim idiocy almost makes him feel better. ‘Dammit, Jim, you got there as soon as you could,’ he replies. ‘Nothing more you could’ve done.’ He uses the sleeve of the open hospital gown to wipe his eyes, takes a deep breath. ‘Nothing more you can do for me except wait, and you’ve got a ship to run. Go relieve that pointy-eared bastard, I’ll bet he hasn’t slept since we got back.’

‘Want to-‘

‘Don’t give a damn what you want to, kid, get your pretty ass back to that bridge and captain the hell out of it,’ Bones snaps, and he’s damn proud of the way that his voice doesn’t shake even a little. ‘You know you’ll get told if there’s any change.’

‘ _When_  there’s any change,’ Jim says, because of course Jim doesn’t believe in no-win scenarios. As he leaves, Bones sighs. He’s a doctor, and doctors know all about no-win scenarios.


End file.
